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This documentary, included as a link above, touches on several subjects that kids are exposed to every day as they grow up in a world saturated by online content. A few of the subjects presented in this video are kids spending time playing video games online, kids taking on alternate personalities online, kids using websites to do homework rather than actually reading books, and cyber bullying.

While these may seem like major issues to a lot of parents, parents have always worried about their children as each generation passes. The worries expressed by parents each generation have been on subjects such as music, television, books, and video games. Each time one of these worries are presented it does not seem as though anything majorly worrisome comes of it.

Take books for example. Some books that are banned in schools now are books that parents were required to read as children. The parents who read these books as children are not bad people because they read these books. The worry expressed over these books now days seems trivial. To rob a child of a wide variety of knowledge seems more troubling than to actually let kids read these books.

It is probably agreed by many that online gaming is a bit of a problem for not only kids but almost any age group these days.

Below is an example of online gaming. People can either bring all their computer systems to one location or a person can play at their own home with a group of people in other locations.

This craze really is not much different from when kids gathered around the Dungeons and Dragons tables back in the day, and yes they still do, the only difference is a person can now play against someone from across the globe.

It is said that teens are now creating alternate personalities and using these personalities to gain attention from others. It is said this is a rampant issue among the internet. For being such a huge problem there really is nothing online addressing this issue. To settle any possible confusion as to what is being talked about here, there is a video below to look at.

In some instances an alternate personality may be healthy to some who have a problem making friends. Of course there is a concern of teens attracting unwanted attention from so called “predators” but studies have shown that most teens know what to avoid when speaking to strangers online. This exact subject is talked about in the documentary “Growing Up Online.”

To say that “teens using alternate personalities on the internet is rampant” seems a bit exaggerated. As stated before, try doing an online search on this subject and there will not be much if any successful results. There is a comedian who speaks of things being rampant on the internet and his name is Doug Stanhope. The guy makes a fairly good point.

Another concern expressed by parents and teachers alike is that teens are using the internet to get notes on books or do reports rather than reading material themselves. Instead of chastising children for doing this, parents should embrace and welcome this approach. At least it is getting done and if the internet had been available during parents’ youth, they would have used it as well.

One subject that was looked upon was cyber bullying. This is a problem on the internet as most will agree. The solution to this problem is not so easily agreed upon however. Children have committed suicide due to online bullying. It does not appear that online bullying is anywhere close to coming to an end. The only thing a parent can really do is to talk to their children about what is going on in their online lives.

Hopefully in the future there will be some sort of an idea as to how to come to a solution to this problem.

Overall this documentary did a fair job of showing what it is like for the life of teens growing up on the internet now days. Sure, the documentary is from 2006 so there are a few comical things said just because they are outdated, but it is still highly relevant in regards of today.

Each generation of parents will have some new thing to worry about when their children grow up. Hopefully, in the future parents and children will grow even closer together to work on a solution to perceived problems of now .